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Design sprints drive product innovation

With a limited scope and a short duration of a week, a Design Sprint can test + validate new ideas around user flow, functionality and interaction design for a specific product goal.

David Yurkanin

Design Lead

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We at DefinedLogic use a process we affectionately call DLUX (read “deluxe”) to solution, define and validate our user experience-related problem solving efforts. We apply these same principles in a condensed, week-long workshop we call a DLUX Design Sprint.

How do we visualize complex surgeon data in a way never done before? Can we create a platform for marketing professionals to find the creative company capabilities they need? How do we combine learning management systems from different industries into an intuitive and compelling experience? These are just some of the questions we have asked ourselves through this process. The magic (read “targeted, thoughtful work”) of it all is by the end of the week, we will have established goals, created insightful concepts, prototyped a product and validated our solution with actual users.

Here’s a little more insight into how the week works:

Understanding where we are and where we want to go.

Day one is all about establishing a common ground among the participants—collectively forming a view of the product’s vision that can be communicated clearly and concisely. On this strong foundation, we move into solutioning with a clear set of questions we want our week’s designs to answer.

We work together as a group to craft singular statements that speak to our user’s problem space and how the product’s vision will solve them.

We craft high-level flows to discuss how people will use the product.

We interview industry experts to make sure we are on the right track.

We decide on a target goal for the remainder of the week.

Consider a multitude of solutions to the problem we’re solving.

Day two is all about throwing as many ideas out as we can and seeing what sticks. Using quick time-boxed sketch sessions, we fill the walls with high-level concepts. Group critiques allow us to further flesh out our individual concepts, building on past rounds to make more complex and nuanced solution sketches. Hundreds of ideas are generated quickly, creating a full palette of ideas created within a single morning session. These divergent ideas are then carefully formed into several complete sketch concepts representing different solutions to our user’s primary problem.

Decide on the best solution for our user’s problem.

The final 3-5 concepts are reviewed, critiqued + voted on with the full sprint team, always filtering feedback through our problem space and vision from day one. This keeps us on target and quick with our decision-making. After sorting through our individual comments, we collectively decide which proposed solution we will prototype and test. The chosen concept’s screens are then built out into a full blueprint of what will become the prototype.

Prototype the product solution.

A fine frenzy of a day for us here at DefinedLogic. Wednesday’s blueprint is broken out into singular elements, which are divvied up amongst the team and stitched back together into a compelling and realistic prototype for our users. It’s commonly a late night for us, but the end result is always nothing short of amazing.

Did our vision resonate with our users?

Our finished prototype is tested one on one through a script with several exemplary users. Their feedback is compiled and dissected for common themes of likes, dislikes and functional requests. All of this, coupled with all of the notes from previous days of the week are then filtered through our original questions to see how successful we were.

Why should you consider a sprint?

Being able to move from idea to defined vision, to clear concept and lastly to validated feedback all within 5 days is invaluable for any business, regardless of where you start from. I am confident in saying that this will be the most valuable week you can muster in an early phase of any product project. Remember, it is easier to change something now on the drawing board with a pencil and an eraser than later on at the construction site with a sledgehammer.